Part 22

At this banquet there was present Dioxippus the Athenian, a famous boxer,[307] who on account of his surprising strength was already well known to the king, and one even of his favourites. Some there were who from envy and malice used to carp at him between jest and earnest, remarking they had a full-fed good-for-nothing beast in their company, who when others went forth to fight would rub himself with oil and take exercise to get up his appetite. Now at the banquet a Macedonian called Horratus, who was by this time “flown with wine,” began to taunt him in the usual style, and challenged him, if he were a man, to fight him next day with his sword, after which the king would judge of his temerity or of the cowardice of Dioxippus. The terms of the challenge were accepted by Dioxippus, who treated with contempt the bravado of the insolent soldier. The king finding next day that the two men were more than ever bent on fighting, and that he could not dissuade them, allowed them to do as they pleased. The soldiers came in crowds to witness the affair, and among others Greeks who backed up Dioxippus.[308]

The Macedonian came with the proper arms, carrying in his left hand a brazen shield and the long spear called the _sarissa_, and in his right a javelin. He wore also a sword by his side as if he meant to fight with several opponents at once. Dioxippus again entered the ring shining with oil, wearing a garland about his brows, having a scarlet cloak wrapped about his left arm, and carrying in his right hand a stout knotty club. This singular mode of equipment kept all the spectators for a time in suspense, because it seemed not temerity but downright madness for a naked man to engage with one armed to the teeth. The Macedonian accordingly, not doubting for a moment but that he could kill his adversary from a distance, cast his javelin at him, but this Dioxippus avoided by a slight bending of his body, and before the other could shift the long pike to his right hand, sprang upon him and broke the weapon in two by a stroke of his club. The Macedonian, having thus lost two of his weapons, prepared to draw his sword, but Dioxippus closed with him before he was ready to wield it, and suddenly tripping up his heels, knocked him down as with a blow from a battering-ram. He then wrested his sword from his grasp, planted his foot on his neck as he lay prostrate, and brandishing his club would have brained him with it, had he not been prevented by the king.

The result of the match was mortifying not only to the Macedonians, but even to Alexander himself, for he saw with vexation that the vaunted bravery of the Macedonians had fallen into contempt with the barbarians who attended the spectacle. This made the king lend his ear all too readily to the accusations of those who owed Dioxippus a grudge. So at a feast which he attended a few days afterwards a golden bowl was by a private arrangement secretly taken off the table, and the attendants went to the king to complain of the loss of the article which they themselves had hidden. It often enough happens that one who blushes at a false insinuation has less control of his countenance than one who is really guilty. Dioxippus could not bear the glances which were turned upon him as if he were the thief, and so when he had left the banquet he wrote a letter which he addressed to the king, and then killed himself with his sword. The king took his death much to heart, judging that the man had killed himself from sheer indignation, and not from remorse of conscience, especially since the intemperate joy of his enemies made it clear that he had been falsely accused.

_Chapter VIII.—Alexander receives the submission of the Malli—Invades the Musicani and the Praesti, whose king Porticanus is slain—He next attacks King Sambus, many of whose cities surrendered—Musicanus having revolted is captured and executed—Ptolemy is wounded by a poisoned arrow in the kingdom of Sambus, but recovers—Alexander reaches Patala and sails down the Indus_

The Indian ambassadors were dismissed to their several homes, but in a few days they returned with presents for Alexander which consisted of 300 horsemen, 1030 chariots each drawn by four horses, 1000 Indian bucklers, a great quantity of linen-cloth, 100 talents of steel,[309] some tame lions and tigers of extraordinary size, the skins also of very large lizards, and a quantity of tortoise shells.[310] The king commanding Craterus to move forward in advance with his troops and to keep always near the river, down which he intended himself to sail, took ship along with his usual retinue, and dropping down stream came to the territories of the Malli.[311] Thence he marched towards the Sabarcae,[312] a powerful Indian tribe where the form of government was democratic and not regal. Their army consisted of 60,000 foot and 6000 cavalry attended by 500 chariots.

They had elected three generals renowned for their valour and military skill; but when those who lived near the river, the banks of which were most thickly studded with their villages,[313] saw the whole river as far as the eye could reach covered with ships, and saw besides the many thousands of men and their gleaming arms, they took fright at the strange spectacle and imagined that an army of the gods and a second Father Bacchus, a name famous in that country, were coming into their midst. The shouts of the soldiers and the noise of the oars, together with the confused voices of the sailors encouraging each other, so filled their alarmed ears that they all ran off to the army and cried out to the soldiers that they would be mad to offer battle to the gods, that the number of ships carrying these invincible warriors was past all counting.[314] By these reports they created such a terror in the ranks of their own army that they sent ambassadors commissioned to surrender their whole nation to Alexander.

Having received their submission, he came on the fourth day after to other tribes which had as little inclination for fighting as their neighbours. Here therefore he built a town, which by his orders was called Alexandrea,[315] and then he entered the country of the people known as the Musicani.[316] While he was here he held an enquiry into the complaints advanced by the Parapamisadae against Terioltes,[317] whom he had made their satrap, and, finding many charges of extortion and tyranny proved against him, he sentenced him to death. On the other hand Oxyartes, the governor of the Bactriani, was not only acquitted, but, as he had claims upon Alexander’s affections, was rewarded with an extension of the territory under his jurisdiction. Having thereafter reduced the Musicani, Alexander put a garrison into their capital, and marched thence into the country of the Praesti, another Indian tribe.[318] Their king was Porticanus, and he with a great body of his countrymen had shut himself up within a strongly-fortified city. Alexander, however, took it after a three days’ siege. Porticanus, who had taken refuge within the citadel after the capture of the city, sent deputies to the king to arrange about terms of capitulation. Before they reached him, however, two towers had fallen down with a dreadful crash, and the Macedonians having made their way through the ruins into the citadel, captured it and slew Porticanus, who with a few others had offered resistance.

Having demolished the citadel and sold all the prisoners, he marched into the territories of King Sambus, where he received the submission of numerous towns.[319] The strongest, however, of all the cities which belonged to this people, he took by making a passage into it underground. To the barbarians, who had no previous knowledge of this device for entering fortified places, it seemed as if a miracle had been wrought when they saw armed men rise out of the ground in the middle of their city almost without any trace of the mine by which they had entered being visible.[320] Clitarchus says that 80,000 Indians were slain in that part of the country, and that numerous prisoners were sold as slaves. The Musicani again rebelled, and Pithon being sent to crush them, brought the chief of the tribe, who was also the author of the insurrection, to the king, who ordered him to be crucified, and then returned to the river, where the fleet was waiting for him.

The fourth day thereafter he sailed down the river to a town that lay at the very extremity of the kingdom of Sambus. That prince had but lately surrendered himself to Alexander, but the people of the city refused to obey him, and had even closed their gates against him. The king, however, despising the paucity of their numbers, ordered 500 Agrianians to go close up to the walls and then to retire by little, in order to entice the enemy from the town, who would in that case certainly pursue under the belief that they were retreating. The Agrianians, after some skirmishing, suddenly showed their backs to the enemy as they had been ordered, and were hotly pursued by the barbarians, who fell in with other troops led by the king in person. The fighting was therefore renewed, with the result that out of the 3000 barbarians who were in the action, 600 were killed, 1000 taken prisoners, and the rest driven back into the city. But this victory did not end so happily as at first sight it promised to do, for the barbarians had used poisoned swords, and the wounded soon afterwards died; while the surgeons were at a loss to discover why a slight wound should be incurable, and followed by so violent a death. The barbarians had been in hopes that the king, who was known to be rash and reckless of his safety, might be in this way cut off, and in fact it was only by sheer good luck that he escaped untouched, fighting as he did among the very foremost.

Ptolemy was wounded in the left shoulder, slightly indeed, but yet dangerously on account of the poison, and his case caused the king especial anxiety. He was his own kinsman; some even believed that Philip was his father, and it is at all events certain that he was the son of one of that king’s mistresses. He was a member of the royal body-guard, and the bravest of soldiers. At the same time, he was even greater and more illustrious in civil pursuits than in war itself. He lived in a plain style like men of common rank, was liberal in the extreme, easy too of access, and a man who gave himself none of the high airs so often assumed by courtiers. These qualities made it doubtful whether he was more loved by the king or by his countrymen. At all events, now that his life was in danger, he was for the first time made aware of the great affection entertained for him by the Macedonians, who by this time seem to have presaged the greatness to which he afterwards rose, for they showed as much solicitude for him as they did for Alexander himself. Alexander, again, though fatigued with fighting and anxiety, sat watching over Ptolemy, and when he wished to take some rest, did not leave the sick-room, but had his bed brought into it.

He had no sooner laid himself down than he fell into a profound sleep, from which, when he awoke, he told his attendants that in a vision he had seen a creature in the form of a serpent carrying in its mouth a plant, which it offered him as an antidote to the poison. He gave besides such a description of the colour of the plant as he was sure would enable any one falling in with it to recognise it. The plant was found soon afterwards, as many had gone to search for it, and was laid upon the wound by Alexander himself. The application at once removed the pain and speedily cicatrised the wound.[321] The barbarians finding themselves disappointed of their first hopes, surrendered themselves and their city.

Alexander marched thence into the Patalian territory. Its king was Moeres,[322] but he had abandoned the town and fled for safety to the mountains. Alexander then took possession of the place, and ravaged the surrounding country, from which he carried off a great booty of sheep and cattle, besides a great quantity of corn. After this, taking some natives acquainted with the river to pilot his way, he sailed down the stream to an island which had sprung up almost in the middle of the channel.[323]

_Chapter IX.—Perils encountered on the voyage down the western arm of the Indus to the sea—Alexander returns from the mouth of the river to Patala_

Here he was obliged to make a longer stay than he had anticipated, because the pilots, finding they were not strictly guarded, had absconded. He then sent out a party of his men to search for others. They returned without finding any, but his unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of the world, made him entrust his own life and the safety of so many gallant men to an unknown river without any guides possessed of the requisite local knowledge. They thus sailed on ignorant of everything on the way they had to pass. It was entirely left to haphazard and baseless conjecture how far off they were from the sea, what tribes dwelt along the banks, whether the river was placid at its mouth, and whether it was thereabouts of a depth sufficient for their war-ships. The only comfort in this rash adventure was a confident reliance on Alexander’s uniform good fortune. The expedition had in this manner now proceeded a distance of 400 stadia, when the pilots brought to his notice that they began to feel sea-air, and that they believed the ocean was not now far off.

The king, elated by the news, exhorted the sailors to bend to their oars. The end of their labours, he said, for which they had always been hoping and praying, was close at hand; nothing was now wanting to complete their glory; nothing left to withstand their valour. They could now, without the hazard of fighting, without any bloodshed, make the whole world their own. Even nature herself could advance no farther, and within a short time they would see what was known to none but the immortal gods. He nevertheless sent a small party ashore in a boat in order to take some of the natives straggling about, from whom he hoped some correct information might be obtained. After all the huts near the shore had been searched, some natives at last were found hidden away in them. These, on being asked how far off the sea was, answered that they had never so much as heard of such a thing as the sea, but that on the third day they might come to water of a bitter taste which corrupted the fresh water. From this it was understood they meant the sea, whose nature they did not understand. The mariners therefore plied their oars with increased alacrity, and still more strenuously on the following day as they drew nearer to the fulfilment of their hopes.

On the third day they observed that the sea, coming up with a tide as yet gentle, began to mingle its brine with the fresh water of the river. Then they rowed out to another island that lay in the middle of the river, making, however, slower progress in rowing since the stream of the river was now beaten back by the force of the tide. They put in to the shore of the island, and such as landed ran hither and thither in quest of provisions, never dreaming of the mishap which was to overtake them from their ignorance of tides. It was now about the third hour of the day when the ocean, undergoing its periodic change, rose in flood-tide, and began to burst upon them and force back the current of the river, which being at first retarded, and then more violently repelled, was driven upward contrary to its natural direction with more than the impetuosity of rivers in flood rushing down precipitous beds. The men in general were ignorant of the nature of the sea, and so, when they saw it continually swelling higher, and overflowing the beach which before was dry, they looked upon this as something supernatural by which the gods signified their wrath against their rash presumption.

When the vessels were now fairly floated, and the whole squadron scattered in different directions, the men who had gone on shore ran back in consternation to the ships, confounded beyond measure by a calamity of a nature so unexpected. But amid the tumult their haste served only to mar their speed. Some were to be seen pushing the vessels with poles; others had taken their seats to row, but in doing so had meanwhile been preventing the proper adjustment of the oars. Others again, in hastening to sail out into the clear channel, without waiting for the requisite number of sailors and pilots, worked the vessels to little effect, crippled as these were and otherwise difficult to handle. At the same time several other vessels drifted away with the stream before those who were pell-mell crowding into them could all get on board, and in this case the crowding caused as much delay in hurrying off as did the scarcity of hands in the other vessels. From one side were shouted orders to stay, from another to put off, so that amid this confusion of contradictory orders nothing that was of any service could be seen or even heard. In such an emergency the pilots themselves were useless, since their commands could neither be heard for the uproar, nor executed by men so distracted with terror.

The ships accordingly ran foul of each other, broke away each other’s oars